Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I went back for a hair clip. I left it in the bathroom when I went in to check that my lips were still the shade of pink I need them to be to make my eyes the brightest. And I took my hair pin out to adjust it and then I forgot to put it back in, and I wouldn’t normally go back for a hair pin but I did, because it’s a £2000 white gold, diamond-encrusted hair pin by Suzanne Kalan and I’m trying to be more financially economical these days, so the economical thing to do would be to go back and at least look for the lost one before ordering a new one on Net-A-Porter.

So I ran back to the bathroom.

Tom offered to come, I said no, it was okay—I’d just be a minute.

It never gets easier, seeing BJ like that. I don’t even know what I saw. They could have actually been having sex for all I know.

His hands were gripping her arse. Properly gripping it. Indented in her flesh of her bottom, were BJ’s fingertips.

And her bottom lip—which was huge, by the way, was dragging up his chest like it was a fucking salt lick—and her hands were nowhere in sight.

And his head was back against the wall, his eyes were closed, his neck all exposed, muscles taut, and I remember when he used to lean back like that with us and I don’t know what he was thinking about, but I know for sure it wasn’t me. I stood there for I don’t know how long. Could have been seconds, might have been minutes. ’Til he saw me, and then I ran.

I don’t really like running. It’s always felt quite pedestrian to me, but I’m faster than he is. I always have been. He says I waste it. I say it’s not a skill I’ve any interest in or appreciation for. Until tonight, when I needed it.

I run back to my room, throw the door open, slam it shut, leaning against it. Squeeze my eyes tight shut, trying to get a handle on myself.

Tom looks up from the couch. “Are you crying?” he asks, standing. “Again?”

I wipe my face clean of tears and scramble for a way to stop feeling like I’m falling down a well.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

I’ve given this very little thought.

None, actually.

Except that when Tom stands up, frowning with this concern on his face for me, the way he rises, the width of his shoulders, all of him feels safe, and I don’t right now… feel safe anymore. And I’d really like to.

I walk over to him, acting far more confident and self-assured than I’m feeling. I slip my arms around his neck and pull his head down to me, and I’ve never done this before. I wonder whether I’m going to feel like a stranger when we kiss, like the girl who was kissing BJ, but I don’t. When I kiss Tom I just feel like me.

A lost version of me. Maybe a concussed one. But still me.

The kiss starts slow, but I kiss him deeper and more and I feel him frown on my mouth, confused.

“What are you doing?” he says on my mouth, not really committed to pulling away entirely.

I pull back and look up at him. “On the day we decided to climb into the foxhole you said you were definitely trying to have sex with me—do you still want to have sex with me?”

He exhales all the air from his chest like I’ve asked him a trick question and his jaw goes a little lax.

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” I nod, leaning back in towards him.

He swallows once as he pulls back a fraction. “This—seems like a bad idea.”

He says that but his hands don’t move from my waist. If anything, maybe they hold me tighter.

“It’s not,” I tell him, eyes stubborn as I stare him down.

A frown whiskers over his face. “How much of this is about BJ?”

I pause, blink twice, swallow once. “Do you care?”

He thinks for a moment, his breathing louder than normal, almost huffy, his mouth pouting a tiny bit as he does—then he shakes his head.

“Nope.” And then he kisses me like he’s got my face in a headlock.

I’m moving backwards but my feet aren’t on the ground anymore.

I unbutton his Cocoon oversized, logo-embroidered, crinkled, cotton-poplin shirt from Balenciaga. Six buttons. I stumble at the third—his chest feels like you’re running your hand over a block of Cadbury’s.

I take a breath. Measure myself. I’ve never done this with anyone else. Just BJ. Don’t think about BJ. I need to change that.

BJ has probably at this point, done it with a hundred girls? Hundreds? I don’t know. And here I am, saving myself still, for… him? Maybe? But for what? To change?

I think maybe, he changed already, and I think maybe, I don’t like it.

When I see him with other girls I’m, well, I’m first of all confused as to why people like pornography so much because so far, my two close brushes with erotica have only made me want to gouge my eyes out. But also, when I see Beej with other girls it makes me quite sure that, actually, I don’t really know him at all.

I’m wafting, in my mind. I’m mentally wafting. Dodging the full situation I’ve put myself in. It’s a coping mechanism, probably. Probably I’m not ready to do this.

Probably this will be a mistake.

Probably need to still do this anyway.

Head in the game, Parks.

Tom lowers me onto the bed, hovers over me, head tilted, looking down, one hand holding him up, the other he uses to slide the strap of my Aya tie-detailed, tiered, shirred, floral-print, cotton-voile mini dress from Loveshackfancy from my shoulder.

His finger lags over my skin and I’m surprised how easy it is to keep BJ at bay in my mind every time Tom has his hands on me.

“You have very lovely eyes,” I tell him.

He smiles at me, a bit amused. Slips the other strap off. He looks back at me, pushes some hair behind my ears. “You’re not selfish,” he tells me. “Or childish.” I give him a small, grateful smile as I try not to cry all over again. “And I think you know what you want.” He nods to himself. I swallow heavy as his hand slides up from my leg, slowly over my arse, landing on my waist, holding me fast. He shakes his head. “Not a brat—” Then he gives me a measured look. “Gotta say, a few months in, you are a bit of a handful—”

I start laughing and instead of his face lighting up how it usually does when I laugh, it goes serious. He tugs my dress down and off my body, his hands trail me as he goes, and then he climbs back up to my face.

His eyes go from eyes to my mouth to my eyes to my mouth and then I pull him down on top of me because I need to not be BJ’s anymore and this will sever me from him once and for all.

This acts almost as a bit of a kick start. He rolls me over on top of him. I unbutton his jeans, and he kicks them off. My hands are busy, so are his…

It’s been so long since I’ve done this—when was the last time I did this? Don’t think about that. Don’t think about him. He rolls me again. Him on top, me on the bottom. I like it better this way.

There’s something so fundamentally comforting about being this close to another person, maybe that’s why casual sex is such a big thing. His body on mine, like a flack-jacket, protecting me from all the things I’d otherwise be feeling in this moment, but can’t because his mouth is where my bra was a second ago, and it’s hard to focus on anything more than the task at hand once the task has begun, don’t you think?

His hands go up into my hair. His kisses are major, deep earth, tectonic plates shifting, and we haven’t even gotten to the actual major parts.

And his parts are major.

It hurts, more than I remember. It’s a good kind of pain though, do you know what I mean? A deep muscle pain. A pain you lean in to, not away from. Like a knot in your shoulder where you lean into the hand kneading it out. And I remember this feeling with BJ—different though, because nobody knows my body like BJ does. Our bodies grew up together.

And I wonder if I’ll ever feel like that with anyone else again. I wonder if BJ has? Or is it a once in a lifetime thing? How many loves do we get in a lifetime? I really don’t know anymore—my heart’s racing so fast now and the dam is building—and there are all sorts of love in this world and mine is killing me, I think. And even still, it’s his face in my mind—even with Tom’s perfect face and golden hair flopped over his eyes that are so blue, even the sapphires stare—even with Tom right here, my mind goes running back to BJ. The task at hand fails to keep my mind off him and I hate what that says about me and him and us, because maybe I’ll never be free.

And do you know what, it’s not even sexy stuff, it’s him brushing his teeth in my bathroom—toothbrush hanging out of his mouth as he tries to peek in the shower wall at me. Him yelling at me every time I knock my water bottle over in the middle of the night. How he hugs Bushka from behind like they’re a couple at the prom. His Vans at the foot of my bed.

And all this shit pulls a number on me, because my mind keeps drifting to BJ just like my heart is tethered there and I wonder if Tom’s mind is drifting to Clara, and I wonder what the fuck we’re doing—but it’s too late to stop, I can’t stop. And I don’t even know that I want to anyway when I think of the way BJ’s hands were gripping that other girl’s arse because there used to be a time in our lives where he’d grip no one like that but me.

Tom presses into me more, pulls me in closer to him, I’m thinking about BJ lying on my side of the bed so I’ll fight him and he’ll touch me and hold me and he’ll have the same smirk he has every time he does it. I’m thinking about where his jeans sit on his body, how his Calvins always poke out no matter what belt I or his mother buy for him. Tom’s very good at this, I think. I wish I could focus on what was happening to my body, but my mind won’t let me. I’m thinking about BJ’s mouth when he talks because the way his lips move is like some sort of ancient, wordless poetry. I’m thinking about his face in the sunlight, the gold flecks in his green eyes. I’m counting the tattoos Beej has on his body that no one really sees because they’re fairly hidden but most of them are overtly about me.

A magnolia—chest.

My birth year—inner elbow crease, right arm.

His birth year—next to mine.

National Geographic—down his forearm.

My back begins to arch.

A bee—left hand.

Another bee—right shoulder.

The Uno Reverse Card—left calf.

A deer—left arm.

Tom presses my hand into the bed.

‘Billie’—along a rib, left side.

A beach umbrella—left upper arm.

Coordinates from Dartmouth—inner elbow crease, left arm.

The date we first kissed—along his left thumb.

My breath is fast. Soon I’ll lose it.

A lilac—left middle finger.

The date we first slept together—left forearm.

‘In every lovely summers day’—right forearm.

‘If someone loves a flower’—right forearm.

Tom pushes in deeper, and my breath turns jagged.

A plaster—upper left thigh.

His breath is hot on my neck as he brushes his lips over mine, and I wish I could see into his mind so I knew whether he was as fucked up as I am right now.

Forget-me-knot—right thumb.

The build of sex has always fascinated me, the climb up towards the end. And we’re climbing, we’re almost at the peak, I can feel it—see it in his face—and we’re quite good at this, actually? All things considered, like how I’m not thinking about Tom England at all, which is insane because it’s Tom England. Do you know what I mean?

East Winds—chest.

Tom’s neck arches back the way BJ’s did with that girl in the corridor.

Paddington Bear—right arm.

I can feel the breath in me being drained, sucked out as feet press down into the mattress, looking for anything to steady myself against.

The Maserati M—right foot.

And then the smallest sound escapes my mouth as my head falls back suddenly untense into the pillow. Tom falls on top of me. His chest is heaving, so is mine. I like the feeling of him sweaty on me.

And I’m so confused about what that means. How I just came, counting the tattoos of my ex-boyfriend but I don’t want Tom England to move from on top of me? What does that mean?

What does that say about me?

I think it just says that I’m broken.

It didn’t work, by the way. It didn’t sever anything. If anything, it just tied me to another person.

BJ’s twenty-second tattoo? The DeLorean from Back to the Future.

What have I done?